


Antlers and Fangs

by chipmunki



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Incest, It happens, Multi, Sex, rickon isn't in it yet! but he won't be forgotten, that happens too, the little cannibal, what a shock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-18
Updated: 2014-01-04
Packaged: 2017-12-15 09:39:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/848038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chipmunki/pseuds/chipmunki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Lost Prince was stolen during his first year. As son of King Robert and Queen Cersei, he was sorely missed in the realm. However Eddard Stark believes he may have found the prince, in the unlikely form of an amnesiac Harry Potter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Where did you come from?” demanded Robb, his blue eyes narrowed at the figure on the bed. His furs were thick and warm around him but it was getting colder and colder every day. His family had been set upon with misery and impediments, his sister was engaged to a cruel and insipid looking prince and his father was to leave Winterfell and his family to become the next Hand of the king. Winter was coming. And he was stuck here trying to get answers out of stupid strangers!

The stranger was shorter than he, younger too, but just as pale and with similar dark, messy hair. For a moment he thought that his father had been unfaithful more than once and had borne another bastard, had another child with a woman other than his mother. But there were no other similarities other than those. The boy had bright green eyes and a sweet heart shaped face. His cheekbones were pronounced but rounded. He was handsome and just a little bit beautiful as well. But he looked dangerous too.

There is a deep red scar slashed across his forehead and Robb can see various older whiter ones across his torso and arms. His quick eyes take in one across his hand that looks like writing, but he cannot distinguish it completely.

“Where am I?” the stranger asks, his voice is rough but deeper than Robb had expected. He rethinks this guess about the boy’s age, adding a few more years. “I was...hit and...” he looks disorientated and looks around. The stranger’s green, green eyes widen as they take in Robb and his men by the door, their swords and their furs. The wildness of them. He must be from the capital, with their velvets and smooth faces, shocked by the harshness of the North.

“Where am I?” and the pure desolation in his voice does not belong to someone not used to their surroundings. It is because of that Robb sheathes his sword and moves closer.  
The green eyes dart across the room, searching, “Where are my things? Can I... can I have them, please?”

The words tumble out and Robb asks, “Why do you want them so bad?”

He stills and his hands settle on his stomach, which Robb notices, is muscled enough to suggest training of some sort. It matches with the sword they had found on him when he was found in the Weir woods, curled around his father’s favourite tree, the heart tree. He exchanged an amused looked with Theon. The sword they had found had been overly decorated. It had not been made for warfare, but for ornamentation.

“It’s all I have left in the world now,” He says, staring at Robb but at nothing at the same time.

Robb nods to the men, and Theon himself brings the bundle of things forward, Robb takes them, and giving the sword back to Theon he shakes the other things onto the bed. A stick, polished and shining, a ring, with a stone as back as night in winter, a shimmering silver cloak, which would be of no use in a place as cold as Winterfell, a round golden ball, intricately decorated. There is nothing practical in these things, only decorated items for lavish use, or, he thinks, picking up the small golden ball, no use at all.

“What happened to you?” He asks, tossing the ball back down on the bed, the stranger scrambles for it, showing a few more glimpses of that pale skin, a few more scars.

“I don’t know. I was” he stopped and frowned, and Robb knew that the boy was reliving a taxing memory. But no man was going to live in his father’s castle, in Winterfell, with no explanation as to why he was there.

“Yes?” he asked

“I was... I was... I don’t remember!” he frowned, searching in his mind for new things. Eyes roving even more wildly than they had before. “I am sixteen years old. I remember my mother had pale skin and green eyes. My father had black hair and there were stags.”

“The coins?” asked Robb, brow furrowed darkly, trying to get this stranger on track. He was not sure if he was lying, pretending or if his memories had really been stolen by the gods.

“No,” the black haired man – boy, if his age is to be believed. That was only a few years older than Sansa, one a single year younger than him, “the animal.”

Robb frowned and in a delirium he was sure came from the cold or a blow to the head in training but he began to see things. The messy black of his hair was more similar to the King’s than his father’s, the green of his eyes a Lannister green, and the shape of his cheekbones the same comely curve of the Queen’s. It was in his hands, which were the same capable long fingered hands of Jaime Lannister, the Kingslayer and the kind curl of his lips, which he had seen in the lips of the princess Myrcella.

He turned away. Everyone knew the story of the Lost Prince – who had been sworn by a Maester to be dead but nobody had been found when Robb was two years of age. Later, the Maester had been found a liar and executed. A search for the child had been started and had continued on for long years, but each of them had been as fruitless as the last. Queen Cersei had stopped the search after seven years, saying her heart could not take the continuous heartbreak of her child never being found. This man-child could be the right age. But the last person who brought a boy forward as the Lost Prince had been executed, as had the boy. He caught Theon’s eye. He knew just from that look that he had not had the same idea as Robb had – but then again, Theon had always been quicker of fist than of mind.

He turned back to study the boy, who was staring at the objects that were his possessions. He watched as the boy slid the ring onto his middle finger. It fit perfectly; he had obviously not stolen it. It fit to well. The ball was gold and the cloak of a fine, slippery smooth material. So he had been brought up in wealth. He said he remembered his mother. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe this was just a child who thought of a deer when he thought of his father.

But he said stag.

And, by the Gods, now that he had seen it he could not unsee it. It was in his every movement. The King and the Queen were in his every breath.

Robb took in a breath and, sealing his fate, called for his father.

Theon acted as the raven that sent the message and his father came swiftly. The men standing in the door parted for him, like leaves of a tree to the wind or to a sharp blade. He stood next to Robb, planting a soft hand on his shoulder and staring silently down at him with his grey eyes. Robb knew his father wanted an explanation, but here, in front of this boy and all of these men was not the place.

“Let us go someplace more private.” He suggested,

Lord Eddard Stark frowned but agreed, “Of course, Robb,” he said, staring at the boy on the bed. He was asleep, as Robb had called for some milk of the poppy to be administered whilst waiting for his father. The boy had fallen to its slumberous hands quicker than Robb had expected, but he had not brought in to account the slimness of his frame. He was muscled, but there was none of the healthy fat that most boys of his age had. “But first, tell me, who is this boy?”

“That’s what I wanted to discuss with you.” He said solemnly. This was something serious he was suggesting, edging on treason, but it would be a glorious day for the realm if it was true and King Robert and Queen Cersei’s oldest son and true heir was returned to them.

They walked out of the room, his father raising a hand to stop the men from following, and towards the more private chambers that his father kept. They stopped in there, surrounded by the personal objects that made up Robb’s childhood, memories in each. It made him wonder on the pain he must be in to be stolen of so many.

Robb had never been raised to be anything but truthful and he knew that his father appreciated honesty and plain language so he spoke of his suspicions with bluntness. “I think that that boy may be the Lost Prince.”

His father stared at him. Ned Stark had been one of the few men that had held the Lost Prince in his own two hands, before he was stolen, before he had been lost. He knew that his father had loved that child as if it were his own, even if he had only known him for a few months. There were songs written for the brotherly love bared between Eddard Stark and Robert Baratheon. Just like Robb had been named for Robert, the Stolen Prince had been named for Eddard. Eddward Baratheon, the first of his name, the beloved prince of the seven kingdoms.  
There was a curious light in his father’s eyes and Robb could only watch as Ned spun around to storm out of the room. He reached out, but his father was already out of his grasp and halfway out of the door. It swung closed behind him and Robb tore it open to follow his father.

The man was striding down the corridor towards the rooms Robb had put the boy in, faster than Robb was used to from his father. In no time at all they were back by the boy’s bed. Ned waved all of the men away and after Robb had caught up with his father he closed the door.

“He is too young.” He said, sharply, his grey eyes studying the boy laying on the bed, each part of him under scrutiny, “He must be what fifteen? And even that would be generous.”

“All men look younger when they sleep. He could be eighteen years of age with open eyes and much older too.” Robb replied, wishing that he had not given the boy the poppy, so he could be awake for his father’s investigation. He looked so much more convincing when awake. Now that he was asleep, he looked that much more innocent, that much younger, that much less the stolen prince Robb had thought him. “Father, I... it may have just been some foolish fancy of mine to think this boy the prince. Go back to your business.”

His father did not lift his eyes from the boy, “Why did you think he was Eddward?” he asked, “The hair? Many men have messy black hair, Robb, it does not make them royalty.”

Robb ruffled his own dark hair, “His eyes are Lannister green, father, he has hands like Ser Jaime and, I don’t know, he just looks like the King and the Queen.”  
His father tilted his head, “Yes, I agree, he does hold more than just a passing resemblance. What does he say?”

Robb groaned - this part of the tale was far less convincing. “He remembers only sparse bits of his past, from what I could make out.”

Ned lifted his head, “It could be a trick.” he said gruffly, “It would not be the first time.”  
But he ducked his head back down to stare at the child, the man, the prince and reached out with a calloused, rough hand to touch his hair, as soft as Robb had ever seen his father.

“It could be him,” he murmured, “he has none of the king’s build but he could just take after Queen Cersei and his Lannister kin. It could be him.”

“He said he remembered his father being a stag, but that his mother had green eyes.” Robb said, watching and waiting silently as his father turned to look at him.

“NED!” boomed a loud voice. Both Robb and his father immediately recognised it to be the King. They looked at each other, then to the boy lying on the bed. Without speech, they began to move. Robb collected up the things of the boy. The stick and the ball were bundled into the cloak and pushed under the bed of the boy. He smoothed the covers to make him more presentable. Then proceeded to straighten his own clothing. It gained him an eye roll from his father, but the King had been a hero to him since boyhood, he wanted to look nice.

Ned went to go meet his king.

“Ned!” gasped the King when he say him, “Bloody hell, man, I’ve been trying to find you for ages! What the hell were you doing, that made you ignore three messengers.”

Ned had commanded not to be disturbed whilst he was with his son. “I did not know you had need of me, Your Grace.”

The King gave him an exasperated look, his ruddy, red face cross, “Enough of this ‘Your Grace’ shit. I want to know why my best man – the man I have asked to be Hand of the King does not answer my commands.”

Ned could never stand to lie to Robert, nor withhold the truth unless his honour demanded it, but he did so now, “There were some pressing matters. I will explain once I know the full truth of it.”

Robert had never been one for deep thinking and he took Ned’s words, as shallow as they were, without demands for further embellishment.

“Aye, then,” he grunted, “We’ve got time till dinner, haven’t we?”

“Yes, Your Grace,” replied Ned, smiling his more indulgent smile for Robert, looking to Robb as he walked through the door Ned had just come from. Robb nodded. It was fine, he took it as, the boy was still sleeping. They were still no steps closer to the truth.

“Then let’s fight!” he roared, hand going to the hammer at his waist and lifted the skin of wine he held in the other to his mouth. Ned had rarely seen his brother in arms without a skin of wine during his visit.

Looking back at the room that the Lost Prince may have been laying in and forward at the drunken King, whose face was ruddy from the excess wine, the old Stark adage had never been truer.

Winter was coming.


	2. Chapter 2

oOo

 

Ned Stark sat beneath the Heart Tree of Winterfell’s Godswoods. The white tree with its heart-red leaves was one of the few places in Winterfell he could truly think. The calm serenity of the forest allowed him a piece of mind he rarely found elsewhere, even in his warm bed with his beloved wife, Catelyn, who he was never sure was completely satisfied with life in the North, if only for the sake of their children. The North was not the most prosperous place in all of Westeros, nor the most glamorous.

He had a lot on his mind, with Robert’s visit, the possibility of his child being alive in Winterfell and the heavy burden of the past weighing heavily where normally only troubles over the mischief of his children would preside.

He pushed his whetstone down the blade of his great sword, Ice, and smiled grimly at the shine of his Valerion steel blade. The Godswood and the act of stoning Ice always cleared his mind and made the path he should take so much more obvious. The possibility of the black haired boy lying in a bed in Winterfell being the son of his best friend and his King’s heir, the next in line for the throne, was something that had to be either verified or quashed before it became too much of a problem.

He would question the boy when he awoke. He would see if his memories had returned to him, if he remembered anything of his past, any secrets or clues to support the claims his son made. If there were more links to Robert and his Queen then Ned would go to them and reveal the boy, if not then he would see to it that the lad had some treatment from a Maester. It was, after all, his own son, Robb, who had come to him with these claims, not the boy. But Robert and Queen Cersei deserved to know if there was any chance that this boy could be their missing son. Ned did not know what he would do if any of his children disappeared as little Edward had as a babe, Robb, Sansa, Arya, Bran, Rickon and even Jon. Gods be good, he could never forgive himself if something happened to Jon.

Ned set his mind to what he had to do.

And if he was lying, then Ned would take the appropriate action against a pretender for the throne. This child would be pretending to be the son of his best friend, sworn brother, and King. The boy he pretended to be would have been family to Ned, one of the few children he loved outside his own. It was not a simple matter of swinging a sword, just like the War, this was a matter of family as well as one of the realm, it was personal, and Eddard Stark would treat it as such.

 

oOo

 

There was a light layer of snow on the grounds of Winterfell; one of their famous Summer Snows. It crunched under Sansa’s feet as she walked over it, compacting, letting her sink a fingers width closer to the earth every step she took. She could feel the cold seep through her shoes, and the wet. She had worn these ones especially for the Prince, for Joffrey, and they were getting ruined!

But she loved it when it snowed.

Not the heavy winter snows Old Nan talked about in her stories, the horrible ones with the monsters and the Others in them, but the light, lovely ones like these. The ones that coated Winterfell with white but still let you see the flowers and the blossoms growing on the trees. It was like the Gods had decided to cover all the ugly things and just let you see everything pretty for a while, like the world belonged in one of the songs that she so loved. It was beautiful, and Arya ruined it.

The drab mud splattered dress she was wearing stood out against the perfect white fur of the snowy surrounding. Sansa marched up behind her,

“What do you think you are doing?” She asked sharply to her sister, who was crouched on the ground, peering around the corner with her queer, grey eyes.

Arya hushed her, glaring, then jerking back around to stare at whatever stupid thing she was staring at. Sansa resolved to leave Arya Horseface to whatever it is she was doing when the sound of metal hitting wood finally met her ears. Her curiosity overwhelmed her and, unconsciously mimicking her sister’s pose Sansa peeked around the corner.

It was Jaime Lannister, his clothes soaked through with sweat, swinging his sword at one of the practicing posts in the yard. It was deserted apart from him and apart from the unending murmur of Winterfell and her own heartbeat slamming in her ears the rhythmic clanging of the sword on the post was the only sound.

He looked like an older version of Joffrey, Sansa thought, and could imagine perfectly him practicing his sword play in the yard in Kings Landing, wiping off his sweat just as Jaime had, before dropping his sword to pick up one of their laughing children.

There was no doubting he was beautiful.

Of course she had no idea why Arya was watching him.

He huffed out a hard breath and wiped off a heavy layer of sweat with his free hand. He then sheathed his sword and called out,

“Why don’t you two little girls come out,”

It was not a question and Sansa instinctively jerked away from the wall, knowing that her courtesies and Septa Mordane would have wanted her to reveal herself and apologise for spying but wanting nothing but to run away. Arya stepped straight out, marching up to him with all of the courtesies of her wolf, Nymeria. Sometimes she thought the dire wolves reflected the personalities of their owners perfectly. Nymeria was a little beast, just like Arya, but Lady had perfect manners.

She took a few hesitant steps after Arya who was only a few feet away from Ser Lannister now, staring up at his face with her thick, dark brows drawn down. Arya had inherited those eyebrows from Father, although she did not look half as intimidating as he did when he frowned. She saw that it was enough to draw an odd half surprised, half amused expression on his face. Father got an expression like that on his face sometimes too when looking at Arya, whenever she came back from one of her ridiculous adventures with a bouquet of raggedy flowers or poisonous berries for a gift.

Another adult who finds her stupid little sister’s wild ways and complete lack of lady like manners charming.

“You two are the Stark girls, aren’t you?” he asks and his green eyes turn to Sansa. She freezes.

“Yes,” said Arya, “What are you practising?”

“Sword play,”

Arya looks annoyed, mouth twisting, “I know that! I meant what exactly, because I saw Jory doing a move like that last one you did, only he didn’t twist his wrist like you did and the cut was all jagged in the wood.”

“You like swords?” he asked, and drew his sword again to show it to her, watching her eyes light up.

Sansa saw the strange gleam light up his eyes as he stared. It was odd, Sansa saw expressions like that on other men’s faces too, like Jory’s and Father’s and even King Robert’s for a second when he first spoke to Arya. Even though it was only for a second, even though it was only for enough time to ask her name. He had called Sansa ‘pretty’ but she did not get the paternal, proud protective looks that Arya got. It was like they wanted to lock her up like a little lady and at the same time put a sword in her hand and teach her all they knew.

“Yeah,” exclaimed Arya, “Father won’t let me have one because it’s not lady-like!”

The expression on her face made it clear what Arya’s feelings were on the matter of being lady-like. Sansa had never felt so ignored, normally it was Arya who was ignored and she who was in the centre of everyone’s attentions. All of the ladies of Winterfell loved her but she had never managed to gain the regard of men like Arya managed too. It normally would not bother her, she preferred the company of women but the easy camaraderie between her sister and Ser Jaime Lannister, the Lannister Lion, the youngest ever to don the white cloak of the Kings Guard and a man seemingly all the heroes in the stories made flesh, annoyed her.  
Except from his title of King Slayer, she thought, suddenly thinking that maybe this was not the most appropriate friend or even conversation partner for her little sister.

“I’m better with the bow,” declared Arya proudly, “even better than Bran and sometimes Robb and Jon.”

“Really?” asked the Knight, and Arya nodded furiously. Sansa could support that, she remembered only a year ago Robb challenging Arya to an archery contest to humour her. Sansa could remember the humorous look in Robb’s eyes, the way she thought it was silly and stupid until Arya had almost beaten Robb, who was over five years her elder and had been trained by archers. Arya had been stroppy because she had not actually won but Father had recognised her talent and had let her have lessons after that. Their father always caved to Arya. Only very rarely would he bring singers or minstrels to Winterfell’s halls if Sansa begged but if Arya wanted archery lessons they would be delivered within the month.

“I can’t beat Theon, though,” she groused, “but he says that the Greyjoy family is known for their skills at sailing, archery and love making.”

Jaime’s golden eyebrows jerked up to meet his golden hairline.

Sansa took another step back, the snow once again crunched beneath her feet and both Arya and Jaime spun to look at her, almost identical expressions of surprise and unwelcome on their faces.

“Excuse me,” she said as she curtsied prettily, and turned to walk briskly away.

 

oOo

 

The boy was waking up. Ned stood by his beside whilst his eyelids fluttered open, Robb by his left shoulder, the room empty apart from that. They had to keep his existence and possible blood lines quiet. His eyes were the dark jewel green Robb had described as a Lannister shade.

The boy groaned and his eyes focussed first on Robb, then on Ned, before settling back on Robb. A look of suspicion settled over his face, leaving creases around his eyes and across his forehead. His heavy eyebrows drew down and turned his eyes to slits. Ned had six children and intimately recognised that look. He turned to his eldest son.

Robb looked uncomfortable.

“I may have given him some milk of the poppy, to knock him out earlier,” he admitted, not looking either Ned or the boy in the eye.

“Milk of the poppy?!” Ned asked, appalled. Milk of the poppy was far too strong for only putting someone to sleep. It was to be used for serious injuries only. “The last time you saw that used was when someone was almost trampled to death by a horse!”

Robb didn’t answer him, Ned would have demanded an answer – milk of the poppy was not a weak concoction, its use was serious, as were its effects and it was not to be given lightly, but then the boy groaned lightly and tried to sit up. He was still heavy with sleep and the milk must still have had a grasp on his body and mind for his arms gave out under him and he collapsed back on to the bed with a louder groan.

“It’s best you just lay there, boy” Ned suggested firmly, “whilst you answer our questions,”

“Questions?” he asked, his voice strong, “About what? I don’t… I don’t think I remember anything.”

“Nothing? My son, Robb, told me you mentioned stags, green eyes and things like that,”  
He gestured to Robb, who was staring at the boy intently. When the object of his gaze stared back at his Robb ducked away from the glare, obviously he was embarrassed by his earlier actions. Then the young man turned back to him.

“Yeah,” he said, “I remember a stag, it was glowing and-“

“What?” asked Ned after the boy stopped himself. His skin was truly fair, he could see it clearly as a blush rose quick and bright over his cheeks and neck. It did not seem to be the skin of a weathered worker but more the skin of a noble. The small folk had hard skin, toughened by sun and wind and work. Even one at the age the boy would have to be would be tougher than it was. Then again, Ned corrected himself, he had none of the calloused created by the sword training a young lordling would have to go through either.

“I think it was my father,” the boy whispered.

Ned jerked back. The boy had mentioned lions too, the sigil of the Lannister family. If the boy was the Lost Prince then his mother belonged to that family.

“And lions?” he prompted, his risen hopes were bolstered when there was a spark of recognition in the green eyes of the boy.

“Them too,” he said eagerly, “Lions and the colours red and gold. I felt safe with lions, like they were home or something.”

He looked at Ned like he expected the man to know why these fragments of memory were what he remembered when he may not even remember his name.

“Do you remember your name?” Ned asked, but the by shook his head.

“No,” he said “I tried, all the way through the forest I tried, but like was like I was reaching into the darkness, expecting there to be something there to greet my fingers but there wasn’t.”

He sucked in a choked breath, “What if I never remember?!” he asked, panicked. The breaths were getting even more stuttered and sharp. Ned had seen this happen to men before. They took in so much air they collapsed. He did not know a name for it, but he did know how to stop it. The boy’s hands were shaking when Ned reached out to grasp them.

“Stop,” he said gently. He had seen men be slapped and punched out of these fits, but he could not force down the voice telling him that this was his best friend’s son, a boy that could have been like a brother to his own children. Maybe even a husband to one of them, he thought, as he remembered Robert’s plans for Sansa and Prince Joffrey. He could not strike this boy. “Breathe and hold the breath,”

He counted to five then told the boy to release the breath, then made him repeat the action again and again until his breathing slowed and his face relaxed from the tense mask it was in.

The boy gulped down one last shuddering breath and said, strained but strong, “I should have a name!”

He sank back down on the bed, relaxed as Ned nodded.

“Yes, of course, we’ll name you something good,” Ned was surprised to hear Robb say, as he moved towards the bed, “Could you just tell us everything you remember? You said something about walking through the forest, where did you wake?”

“I remember green eyes, I think they were my mother’s, and a man with black who was my father, and the stag and a wolf and a dog who protected me.” He said, there had been boys who had said things to the same end as this one, who had mentioned lions and stags and gold, but never had Ned felt even the slightest belief in the, like he did for this boy. “Green lights and a bald man laughing,”

The wolf could mean him, Ned thought, as he recalled the time he and Cat had spent in Winterfell to welcome little Edward into the world. The way Ned had held him, as he had held his own children before and after, with one large hand cupping the delicate, tiny skull of the babe, his arm holding up his body. An entire being reliant on his capable hands, his strong arms.

“I woke up in the forest.” The boy said and paused, he was looking at Robb but staring at nothing at the same time. “There was a bald man, with blue lips on a tree branch, and he smiled at me and waved as I ran.”

The Undying Ones, thought Ned, bloody Warlocks from Qarth. The story was getting more and more credible the more he heard. He wanted to reach out and cradle the boy’s head in his hands, see if it felt familiar. All of the fondness, all of the love he thought he would feel for Joffrey rushed into him. This was his best friend’s, his brother in arm’s, his king’s son, and Ned knew it.

He would send Robb to Robert and Queen Cersei tomorrow morning. It was dark already and Robert was already drunk. In the morning he would send his own son to them with news that their son had been returned.

“I’ve thought of a name,” said Ned, “How do you like Edward?”

Edward grinned, then his eyes slipped closed, the Lannister green lost but the smile that so matched his father’s stayed for a second, echoing the joy in Ned’s heart.

 

oOo

 

Cat settled down next to her husband on their large bed, sinking down under the furs and the cottons that were their covers. They had barely had time to talk lately, it felt almost odd to talk to him now, when there was three days of silence between them. She had never felt so unconnected to her husband, never not known the reason for the deep crease between his eyebrows or the worry in his slate grey eyes. She slid into the place she had claimed at his side, under his arm, tucked under his chin.

“I have some news for you, my love,” he said, curling his arm around her. His skin was warm, warmer than anything in Winterfell. It made he feel safe to have this heat surrounding her, as if Ned had carved out this warm spot in all of his Stark coldness just for her.

But his words did create a chill in her. As much as Winterfell was one of the old seats of power, as much as the Starks were one of the oldest, most important families in the Seven Kingdoms and as much as it was Ned’s support and the Stark’s support that won Robert his throne, it was a quiet place. The only important good news she could remember was the news of her pregnancies.

“I believe I may have found the Lost Prince.”

Shock echoed through her. Cat pulled away from him, needing to look him in the eyes. This was news beyond what she had even imagined. The Lost Prince. The loss of that babe had crippled all of Westeros. He was to be a beacon of new growth and hope for those who had supported Robert Baratheon’s bid for the Iron Throne, but that idea had been decimated when he was discovered gone. Those who had opposed the King, the ones who called him ‘the Usurper’ behind his back, had claimed the act as an act of divine interference, as if the Gods themselves had reached out a hand and plucked the babe out of his crib to punish Robert for breaking the Targaryen’s grasp on the Iron Throne.

“Who?” she asked.

“A boy Robb found in the wood,” Ned answered her, “You would not believe it, my love, he has no memory but I’m so sure it is him.”

Cat looked at her husband who placed no faith is signs and gut feelings and felt the twinge of fear in her belly grow. They had just made love and yet she felt as cold as ever.

“What are you going to do?” she asked, and stared as his eyes grew contemplative and distant.

Suddenly there were a million different routes set out in front of her. Some of them ending in devastation, others in triumph. She had to choose wisely which one she should take, which one she should advise her husband to take, for the sake of her children. Ned would listen to her if she talked sense. He would have too. All of their lives depended on how he acted in this moment.

He must go south, she decided, and she must find out more on the boy.

Would he harm her family? His existence would surely damage Sansa and her marriage to Prince Joffrey. No longer would her Summer girl with her Tully hair and her southrun eyes be in line for queendom.

But there were bigger consequences. What if the boy was not The Lost Prince? What is he was an imposter? To present the king with a liar and say it was his beloved missing son would ruin all the love between the King and her husband. Over the years she knew he had become almost a figure of beloved legend to the King, as if, just like Lyanna, all of his problems would have been solved by his sheer existence.

“Are you sure telling the King is wise, my lord?” she asked worried.

In a jarring surprise there was a sharp knock on the door. Ned nodded briskly at her as they were told that Master Luwin wanted to see them. It was dire, they were told, and he had important news.

Catelyn could tell this news would be just as debilitating as the news she had just heard.

 

oOo

 

There was no throne room in Winterfell. Even though the Starks descended from the old Kings of Winter they did not have a throne, made of steel or ice or bone, or if they had it had been destroyed years ago. They had an old, cavernous feasting hall, with a lifted platform for the Starks and actual chairs instead of benches and it served. King Robert lounged in the centre, and most embellished chair – Lord Eddard Stark’s chair, normally with a wine flask in one hand and a hunk some sort of meat clasped in the other. There was normally a girl, pretty and blushing, a yard away from him and a step away from his bed and his stone faced, beautiful wife, resplendent in Lannister gold, never touching him and never in his bed, in the chair next to him, when she was not invisible to prying eyes with her brother. But Robb knew of the bonds between siblings, he and Jon were close enough to be twins and occasionally he and Arya would finish each other’s sentences. Although never as much as Jon and she did; for all that Jon was their half-brother and bastard born, it was the most obvious of Arya and Jon that they were siblings and that they were children of the Starks. He could not argue their time together, not Jon and Arya’s and definitely not Cersei and Jaime’s. She was the Queen after all.

Robb was standing in front of that chair now, hands clasped behind his back so hard that the knuckles were sure to be bleached white form strain. He was trying to stop himself from reaching for his sword. It was hard not to have your hand on its hilt when you had a man who defeated kings and ruled nations staring at you like he would enjoy nothing more than to rip your head off or stab you through the neck.

“What did you say, boy?”

“I think,” he said, pushing as much conviction into his voice as possible, “That I may have found your son.”

He could see Jon and Theon start in the corner of his eye but Cersei rising up from her seat like a great lion about to pounce was not something he could take his eyes off of. It was beautiful and terrifying at the same time. Fear coursed through him even more the stronger at her words.

“I want him dead!” she declared, staring at Robb, teeth fixed into a bared, white snarl, “How dare you say such things!”

“Cersei,” The King grunted, tuning red when he did not get a response.

“Our son is dead, My Edward, my boy is dead and I will have your head before I allow you to drag his name through the dirt!”

“CERSEI!” thundered Robert Baratheon, and Robb could once more see the man that slew the Prince Rhaegar and spilt his rubies like blood into the blue waters of the Trident with a swing of his mighty war hammer.

The King turned back to Robb, his face scarlet and his eyes narrowed. “What did you say?”

Robb swallowed nervous spit gathering in his mouth in one loud, choking gulp and repeated the sentence, “I think that I may have found your son.”


	3. Chapter 3

oOo

He looked like Jaime.

Cersei was frozen. The boy was slim, with the darkest jet black hair but he had the lips of the man she had kissed so often, his sharp cheekbones and, limp and lose on the cloth and fur than covered him, his hands were pale brothers to the hands that handled both the sword and her like they were made to. He was lean looking, like a Lannister, with skin the peachy, golden shade of hers and Jaime’s and even her ugly, little imp brother’s. She did not allow herself to reach out, to see if his skin was as soft as hers or worn and harder like Jaime’s or even Robert’s. She wanted to trace the straight line of his nose, because it looked just like Jaime’s.

He looked like Jaime.

And if he looked like Jaime… then he looked like her.

“He looks just like you,” her husband grunted, hands flexed at his sides, large, fleshy and powerful but useless. She remembered those hands, raw and bloody from beating against the wall when it was discovered their child was missing. His shouts, his anger, and then finally, his desperation. She remembered the babe looked exactly like him, round and red, eyes yet to turn from their new-born blue. He had been born with a full head of black hair and screamed as he came out of her, just as Robert screamed, and as she had been told she had when she had been born. Jaime had come out with barely a whimper.

“No, he does not.” She snapped, and stepped away.

“Now, let’s not be so quick, dear sister,” came her brother’s smug voice. She turned to see him leaning in the doorway, a smirk worming its way across his stunted face. She narrowed her eyes at him, wanting him to leave. Why did he have to appear now?! She lamented to herself, staring at Tyrion’s mismatching eyes. They stared back at her, into her, as if he saw her secrets, and the possibilities, danger and lies that lay, sleeping, on the bed behind her.  
“He has yet to even wake,” Tyrion said, as he looked to the figure. The humour slipped off his face and was replaced by a sort of studious concern.

“He does have the Lannister look about him,” Tyrion continued, Cersei could see his quick eyes flit from his cheekbones to his lips to his hands to his ears, the lobes of them detached and loose just as her own were, and Jaime’s, their father’s and even Tyrion’s. His eyes took note of everything hers had. She could see him coming to the same conclusions.

“My son informs me that his eyes are green,” said Ned Stark, “Lannister Green, your Grace,”

Cersei snorted and shot him a look full of derision. Ned was only staring at Robert though, her stupid, fat, useless husband. She was pleased to see him look just as unimpressed as she wanted everyone too. Hopefully he would be able to convince the others. Tyrion was an ugly little imp but Cersei would grudgingly admit that he was a smart one. He read enough books and scrolls for there to be something in his misshapen, ill sized head. Or to convince the others that there was.

His silence, her disagreement, all of Eddard Stark’s uncertainty; it gave her husband pause, and made him doubt. Any seeds of misgiving she could sow would grow into belief and her Joffrey would have the throne.

“It not him,” she stated, and turned to leave, “I would know if he was my son.”

She cast one more look back at the sleeping figure.

He looked like Jaime. She never thought that a child of Robert Baratheon’s would ever look so much like Jaime.

 

oOo

 

There had been days when the maids of Westeros would swoon had his feet. He had been tall, and broad, a true stag. Gods, how the men had quaked at the sight of him on the battle field. He had been great then. By the seven hells, his helm was mighty and his war hammer struck strong and true and damn it all to hell if he did not have a different woman in his bed very night and a different battle to fight every morning.

He knows, in his deepest hearts and in the forefront of his mind, that that was the best part of his life. When he slept, warm and safe and satisfied, and dreamt of his sweet wolf come home to him. He still had those dreams, but they always ended so very differently.

Now his children are little blond killers, with hands wet with kitten blood and smiles sharp like blades. In his dreams they were his and Lyanna’s, kind, with sweet, dark hair and her soft eyes. They look like him, with all the best parts of her mixed in. by the Gods, some of them even look like Ned – a serious faced boy, one of the middle ones, acting as Ned did for him for his heir. That one looked like his little Edward, Lyanna’s child in the way that they are both so lost to him. It felt feminine and soft to hope that Lyanna was looking after the babe, treating him as the child they would have had. The child that they should have had.

And now the son of his closest friend, more of a brother to him than Stannis or Renly ever were, had stepped forward and called that his boy had been alive all this time.

There was guilt gnawing at his insides. Had he left his son to torture when he declared the search over? Had he condemned his child to a life of pain? There was no doubt in his mind he could have done more. There was no doubt in his mind he could have stomached the pain, pushed through the sadness and hefted the weight on his shoulders to a less painful position. He had done the same for Lyanna. He had done the same for Lyanna and never stopped until he had he in his arms. How could he have not done the same for his son?  
The world was a worse place without her, and it was a worse place with him as King.

He was a drunk, and, Seven Hells, if he could number all the things he would rather be doing than Kinging. He was so fat he barely fit onto his throne anymore, more than once the blasted thing had cut through his clothes and into his arms and sides. It killed him that he stole the Iron Throne but he could not reclaim his Lyanna. And that was the perfect truth of it. He would give up all of Westeros for Lyanna back, or for his Lost Prince, let the whole damn world burn, for her, for them. What the hell kind of King did that make him?

Robert did not deceive himself, not for true. He saw in the mirror what he had become, what the loss of Lyanna had done to him, what too much wine and too many feasts had done to him, what the loss of his perfect son had done to him.

How had this become his life? He had fought a war for Lyanna. He had slaughtered as many men as necessary to get her back from that thieving Targaryan. He had raged across twenty battlefields, more, to reclaim her. He had deposed an unjust King, he had killed the rapist, Rhaegar, and this was his reward? Cersei bloody Lannister in his bed, as his wife, mother of his children where it should have been Lyanna.

There is a child lying on a bed in front of him that looks like his wife and has the Baratheon hair. The son of his brother claims it is his son. In his dreams, this moment makes the world glow. Now he just feels old.

 

oOo

 

_There’s a hand at his temple, soft and smooth like satin or silk. It glides across his head, pushing his heavy hair back from his face. It’s soothing like only a mother’s touch can be, and he recognises the touch from the deepest, truest part of himself. He opens his eyes and green looks back at him. It looks like emeralds and grass, like all the best and most natural things in the world._

_It’s his mother._

_But... there’s something wrong._

_His head twists, visions dancing with swelling black clouds, shifting shadows. It’s… she’s blonde. That’s wrong, he knows it is, he’s had this dream before, his mother has hair the colour of fire._

_His mother has red hair, and green eyes and a smile fiercer than a million lions. But… no… that’s wrong too._

_That’s… that’s…_

_That’s wrong too._

_His mind flashes to a room made of stone. He is laying on an alter laying on a white cloth, naked, but covered with more of the material. A man stands over him._

_Fear._

_Recognition._

_Fear._

_Something in the back of his mind cracks._

  


oOo

 

There was a time Cersei would have called for her brother to help her with a problem such as this. However, lately she had come to recognise Jaime’s true nature. He was the shoulder, the soldier, the sword. He needed to be wielded to be of any use. And she was the one most apt at wielding him, and the one who needed him most – but only when the time came.

No matter how useful as he was, and how much she wanted him beside her, she needed to think now, and he was too much of a distraction for her to formulate any sort of plan or any thought past her son, visions of his chubby hands grasping her thumb, his kicking legs and gummy yawns, the chasm inside of her that grew inside of her into a distance the gods could not force back together since she had pulled him from her breast for the last time.

She stopped herself. She had two sons; her kingly, fierce Joffrey and sweet, round Tommen. This interloper was not her son. He was Robert’s. She reached up to probe at the reddened skin on her cheek. It would bruise later, turn mottled blue and black and purple and then sickly green and yellow. She remembered how he had kicked inside or her. It was one of the few times Robert had touched her gently, free of clumsiness and anger, just soft strokes as his son kicked inside of her. He had called it proof of his strength, and she remembered the clear thought that there was strength in stillness too.

She learnt that lesson thoroughly over the years. She took power in it when Joffrey and Myrcella and Tommen barely moved inside of her. They were her children, her true born sons and daughter in all the ways that mattered.

There was a goblet of wine in front of her that had been sitting in the same place for the entire night. She had never liked the taste of it, to be true, and it soured in her mouth even more over the years, as she stared at the embarrassing effects on the man that had once been her dreams. But she drank from it deeply, swallowing the acid down until her belly was full of it.

It made warmth climb up her spine like a fire was being banked in her stomach. It gave her the strength to think.

The first thing to do would be to get an explanation for what happened. She needed to send a raven or a messenger to the blue lipped men, those sorcerers and liars, and make them talk. Then she would need to take care of the ghost laying on the bed. She could not take the chance that he would remember anything at all that would incriminate her or usurp Joffrey’s position as first in line for the Iron Throne. She knew her son was not perfect but he would be better on the throne than some stranger who did not even know his own name. And in addition, Joffrey was far more likely to listen to her advice.

She couldn’t outright kill the boy, not with Stark involved, who, whilst not being the smartest man, was prone to suspicions and was dogged enough to keep tugging at strings until everything unravelled. She could go poison. A slow one, making it seem as if he was just ill.

She had done it before. Or she could wait until he was up, then let him trip down some of the heavy stone stairs that were so popular in this bloody castle. But that could give any of them a chance to prove that he was who the Starks thought he was, not all of their minds were as slow as her husband’s.

No, she declared, poison would be better, cleaner.

Easier, a hidden girlish voice proclaimed in the back of her mind, you do not want to see him walking or talking or at all or you would not have the strength to do it. They said his eyes were Lannister green.

That was right. The idea of him opening his eyes and getting up, holding a sword and talking and proving to all of Westeros that he was the Lost Prince was horrifying. He looked so like Jaime, there was very little doubt in her mind that he acted like him too. To steal Joffrey’s birth right and at the same moment make her too weak to fight back was worst that anything she had ever dreamed.

He was supposed to be gone. She was never supposed to have to make these decisions.  
Poison. Before he wakes up again, before he opens his eyes.  
Poison. So I will never have to know him.

Then when he is dead Robert will never want to come back to this place, even the thought of his brother in all but name would not be enough to draw him back to this place that had become his son’s grave. His only trueborn son, the only prince he had that had laughed when he saw Robert’s face instead of crying. How his heart would break to think of Winterfell and the Starks that had given him his son then torn him away.

And how free she would be without the wolves baying at her door, even that little bitch, Lyanna, would be tainted for him. Robert would never again return to her crypt.

Already, her wine tasted sweeter.

 

oOo

 

There was something going on in Winterfell. The servants were scurrying faster and whispering more, Robb had that stupid look on his face as if he knew something everyone else did not and, what’s more, her father was doing things he never used to do.

Arya knew her father. He did not appreciate change and although he did not keep to a strict schedule he did the same things he always did. He talked to the maester, he spent time with her mother in their chambers, he sat beneath the heart tree of the forest and thought whilst he sharpened Ice.

When the King had come, with his Queen and stupid Prince Joffrey, Arya knew that there was something that was going to happen. It had been exciting at the beginning, when there were crowds of new people coming to visit Winterfell; The King and the Imp and all of these people she did not know and who had not known her since she was born. Seeing the King slayer had been nice too, exciting and scary at the same time.

But now the excitement had faded, the dread way creeping in.

Wait, she froze, catching a daring movement from above her, grinning. It was Bran!

She waved at him wildly, checking first to see if their mother or Sansa or anyone else who would tell on him was around. She was amazed to see him daringly take his hands off of the wall he was scaling to wave at her with both arms. Arya considered climbing up to join him, but he was already really far up and she would never be able to catch up with him and he never wanted to wait or her. It was annoying, but it was a feeling she could understand. She never really wanted to wait for anyone else either.

He scurried off after a minute of grinning and waving. It looked like he was heading towards the outer towers. Arya knew he loved them. They were dilapidated and just scary enough that it was exciting. Bran loved it up there, she knew, he carried corn in his pockets for all the crows that lived up there. She had been up there once or twice with him, and even after all of the stories everyone had told them about them picking out their eyes they never went for them, but they did fall on the corn like they were Sansa with lemon cakes (it was the only time she had seen Sansa eat as much as her, though it was all eaten with ladylike sensibilities).

A little while ago she would have been upset at being left behind. Bran was the closest to her age, and they would play sometimes, but he was 10 now, he was being taught all of the things she wanted to be taught and even when he was free from lessons he would rather not wait for her. She could never turn to Sansa for companionship because she never wanted to do anything fun and always made faces even when Arya suggested horse riding. And of course there was stupid Jeyne Poole who always laughed along with Sansa’s insults. The only one she could really turn to was Jon. He was her favourite brother and she knew he loved her best as well. But he was leaving her behind as well. Arya’d heard his talk of going to The Wall and everyone knew girls weren’t allowed there so she’d never see him for ages.

But she has Nymeria now!

She spins and there is her amazing Direwolf. She trots over and butts at Arya’s waiting hand. Her fingers get caught in some mud when she tries to run her hands though her fur, but Arya knows she got so muddy when they went digging for buried treasure. So even though they didn’t actually find any, she’ll forego the bath for a while. She could probably put it off until her mother said something or Sansa found out and starting whining about it. By the Gods, she hated giving one to Nymeria just as much as Nymeria hated getting one.

She hugs Nymeria as close as she can. Nymeria doesn’t really like it, she hates to be held down but she allows it. Then she stands up, pulls Nymeria up and runs to find another adventure.

 

oOo

 

There was never a time Jaime felt so complete as when he was in his twin sister. There was something about being so completely connected to her that was so natural and such an innate want that it was as close to perfection as he had ever felt. If he had Cersei on his cock and a sword in his hand then he was as the Gods had wanted him to be. That was the two things they had made him for. Loving his sister and killing people.

So it should come as no surprise to him the length he would go to to get any space of time alone with her. But sometimes it does. Sometimes he ends up on his knees behind Cersei, buried so deep in her he never wants to leave, with the straw on the floor making odd, pink imprints on his skin and the crows cawing around his head and he thinks ‘this is an odd place to be – how did it get to this.’

There were some things he always expected. To always be with Cersei was one of them. They came into the world together, with a hand grasping at an ankle and looked so alike they fooled all but themselves (and even themselves sometimes) and they were always going to live just as connected. But for Cersei to be Queen, to have those three blond, blond children in line for the throne. Their love was always going to be dangerous, powerful and burn as hot as the Targaryan’s dragon’s fire did but he had no idea it would come to this.

Well, he thinks, thrusting in again, savouring the noises his Cersei makes; her demands and mewls, he’s never been the thinker of the family. Then she climaxes and he peaks with her, at the same second, as in tune as they always have been.

This was the way things were supposed to be. He was born to love Cersei and to wield a sword. That was the way it had always been and it was the way it was always going to be in the future.

He thrusts a few more times, riding it out, then is pulled from his thoughts by Cersei’s shouts. He sees the boy in a second and is out of her a second later. He has a fist grasping the Stark’s tunic before he even knows it. Cersei speaks behind him and he weighs it out unnecessarily. He knows what he is going to do – he’ll do what Cersei wants, he always does. He would move the world for her, pull down Gods and kill Kings. After all, he’s already killed one of them and the current one is a lot fatter.

For a second he hesitates. Then…

“The things I do for love,” said Jaime Lannister, staring at his twin sister, and, with a thoughtless, hard shove, Bran was falling.


	4. Chapter 4

oOo

_He is not dreaming this time._

_His mother’s hands are gentle on his arms. He’s an infant, all baby fat and no mobility, but everything feels soft when he is lifted up. There’s a voice, an easy voice which is so sad at the same time as being so comforting. Green eyes look into his and rich, blonde hair falls around him in curls._

_He is pulled closer and settled against a smooth, bare chest. Wetness drips onto his skin. Inside of him something shivers and shifts uncomfortably. The breast against him shudders._

_There’s a loud knock on the door and the easy skin he was resting against goes stiff. Although his mouth searches for milk, makes the soft, wet suckling noises that normally results in his hunger being sated, he is ignored. Instead he is rushed back into the crib he was in. His mother’s voice, which was once so soft, is strident, arrogant and forceful as it orders the knocker in._

_Cold hands lift him up. They are rough and not his mother’s._

_He starts to cry._

 

oOo

 

The undying man was just as repulsive as she remembered him. His skin sagged and his eyes bulged, frog-like, and his lips were that ghastly, disgusting blue. She could not stand the sight of him when she first saw him. Less so when she gave him her first and only living child of King Robert Baratheon, first of his name, and even less so than that now that she knew that he had failed her.

She had paid his handsomely to keep her son from the throne, to ensure that a Lannister, one of her beautiful Jaime’s children and not one of Robert’s spawn, inherited the crown. But he had failed her. He had let her son go, at the cusp of becoming a man, not a thousand feet from where she and her husband had been residing. And furthermore at the home of Eddard Stark, the vulgar and boorish best friend and brother in arms of her husband.

What a failure. What a punishment she would have to deliver, to this wizard, to this blue lipped man who believed he could not die. She would have to teach him just how wrong he was. All men can die, but especially if she put her mind to it.

But first, answers.

She spoke before he could.

“You will explain to me what happened.” She demanded. The bulbous eyes of the thing before her narrowed but she matched the movement. She was a Lioness of House Lannister; she did not cower before a blue mouthed toad.

“He died, your majesty,” he sneered her title, not giving her the respect she deserved, that she had earned. “We promised to hold him until death.”

“Clearly not,” she said, rising from her throne, a sneer of her own on her face. She had commanded the guards out the room but gained a sweet satisfaction at the ease of which she could call them back and have this man in chains. She stared into his eyes, which were proud and disdainful, men always thought they had more power than they did. She should have been born as a man; she would have done so much better than any of these ruddy-faced pretenders. This gown, this hair, the soft swell of her hips. All of it was so restraining, useless. The only thing she was grateful for was her womb, and the three beautiful children it gave her.

But, she thought, she may not like the body she was given, but she did know how to use it. She moved closer, curving the full curve of her lips into a smile, painted red and brilliant, like blood or Lannister colours. She could see the moment he took in the promise in his eyes. She shifted closer, let her breasts lead her body. It was so easy. Then she let the mask drop.

“Now explain to me why my son is in Winterfell and not in your care, like I paid for.”

The toad met her.

“We promised until death, no longer.”

Cersei wanted to sweep all of the things off of the table beside them. It was only her self-restraint that stopped her. For a second though, she imagined it, the resounding clash as all of the shiny goblets and gleaming trinkets were dashed to the floor, that disgusting man’s expression when he saw her rage. He would fear her then.

But only men were truly allowed to rage. Sometimes she felt like the earth could shake with the force of her fury, but she could never show it. Courtesies had been bred into her, silence beat into her, she would be a lady, and she would take her revenge with courtesy and a quiet voice. She would still prevail. Just as she would now, with this insipid blue lipped wizard.

“If you promised until death,” She asked, her voice quiet with the rage that only Jaime would recognise, “Then way is he still alive?”

“It is complicated-“

“Then explain it!”

“We put him into a dream,” the toad said, his eyes bulging viscously, his words were sharp and pointed like arrow heads, “He lived a different life, with different parents and a whole world he created for  himself. It was supposed to last for much longer.”

He paused. His eyes roamed over her face. She didn’t know what he was seeing there. The thought of her son being raised to call another woman ‘mother’ disgusted her. She hated that woman. But there was another suspicion rising in her. Why hadn’t whatever curse these magicians put him under lasted for as long as they thought it should? Had it been faulty?!

“He must have died young in his made up world.”

Her son died young. Her plans quivered in her mind. Would she doom her child to two early deaths? She wanted to demand he leave.  A scream clawed at her throat, but like her ancestors had done to the wild lions she caged it.

“He had things with him when he was found,” She said instead, “They said he was found with a ring and a ball and a cloak or something like that.”

For once the man looked as disquieted as she wanted him to be.

“I could have the guards in here in a second,” she told him, her voice hard, a low threat aimed at his soft belly. It struck.

“He must had some sort of potential.”

_Potential?_

“For magic.” He said,

She turned away, thoughts racing through her mind. What did that mean?

Magic meant power. Magic was what turned the Valyrians of old from sheep herders into conquerors. Magic was what had kept the Iron Throne for them. It was only when their power, their magic, their dragons waned, that anyone could wrest control from them. It was only their magic that made them different from her, and Jaime and all of the Lannisters.

But it was dangerous. She knew that. There were countless examples of magic leading people astray. The dangers of it could be seen quite clearly in the bloated, pale, blue mouthed, foul man behind her, with his bulging eyes and slimy mouth.

And Joffrey. What about her Joffrey? For years, long years, he had been all she had. Even Jaime only rarely managed to fill the space that the birth of Joffrey had done effortlessly. Was she to turn away from him now? Leave him to be the second son, after a stranger with powers she couldn’t understand.

No, maybe it was best he be gone. Maybe she could pay them to take him away gain, put him in another dream, and another if he died in the second, then another if he died in that, keep him away from the dangers and beauty of her world, the world she had created for her children. She had half convinced herself her baby was dead in these past years.

But when she turned back it was to an empty room.

She wanted to scream, but no one could find out what she had done.

 

oOo

 

He could hear the whispers in the castle. The ones they did not want him to hear. The ones that said something big was coming and that he was in the centre of it. There was a voice at the back of his head praising his curiosity and he has to thank it, and follow it, because without it he would not be making the choice that he was now.

He was going to leave.

The kind man, Eddard, who named him and his son, with the eyes of his father, visited him almost every day and pressed him for what he remembered. It isn’t much. But he knew he was not stupid and he knew a green light and death and he knew that he needed to leave.

Eddard, Ned, said his name should be Edward now, but it didn’t sound right. There was a faint echo around it and a blur over the name whenever he tried to think of it. Like a shadow covering writing on parchment, he could barely make it out. It hurt his head if he thought too hard about it.

It was easy to pack up his things. The ring and the ball were easily concealed in the pockets of the clothes that Robb had provided for him and the sword was covered by the cloak. He was going to have to steal a thicker one though, he thought, as he hefted the slippery material of the cool, silvery cloak. It was cold to the touch even inside the castle (and the castle was heated by underground springs, Robb told him, so it was always warm, even in the dead of Winter) so it would be useless outside, where there were snows and winds that froze a man’s spit in his own mouth (If Robb’s stories about the wall and the land of unending Winter were to be believed.). He would have to steal another, a thick one, although he had no clue where to get one from. It was summer, they told him, that it had been one of the longest ones to date, lasting years and years, even lifetimes. It had been summer all of Robb’s life, he had said, and he didn’t know why but that sounded really, really odd to him. Like it should never be so long.

Everything was a little odd here, and, just when he thought he saw something he recognised, it changed and he realised that he didn’t know anything at all.

But he knew he didn’t belong here. He knew that much. He didn’t know his own name, but he knew he won’t ever find it here. They’ll call him Edward, and then they’ll expect him to be happy about it.

He would wait until nightfall. When everything is dark and quiet and everyone is asleep it should be easy to go without anyone suspecting. He didn’t even know why they would care. It was very kind of them, to be concerned with a lost man – boy such as himself but didn’t the lord of a castle have much better things to do?

He started when the door opened. It was Eddard. Ned’s face was lined like old stone. He looked sad and worried and so serious that fear rose up in him. He instinctively slid the bundle of his things into an opened drawer, seeing Ned’s eyes unconsciously observing it.

“Edward,” He said in a sombre voice, “I have something I have to share with you.”

 

oOo

 

They think he was stupid. They must think him as much of a fool as one of these heathen, animal Northmen, who bow to trees. But he was no fool, and he knew as much as he knew he was the rightful heir to the Iron Throne and everything else in this world that there is something going on that no-one will tell him about. He can’t help but sneer, there’s a servant in the corner, and he notices her shiver. The cold is terrible, but he notices her start to when he jerks to his feet.

Is it him she was shivering at?

What a smart little commoner. Stag’s should be feared as much as lions should and he is as much one as the other, she should fear him. He deserves it. He deserves everything.  He will be King after all.

“Where is my mother?” he asks the room. Someone will answer him.

“In the sept,” a male voice answered. He didn’t bother to see who it was, and gratitude was for people who had to give it.

“Your Grace,” he said instead. It was his title, and these peasants should call him it.

“Of course, your Grace,” the man says, and Joffrey turns to him, waiting, “My apologies, your Grace.”

He smiles, and sees the look that crosses the servants face. It’s flattering, satisfying. He’s seen men look at his grandfather like that, at his father, occasionally his mother too. He stands, sweeps out of the room. His mother has the answers to his questions and he will hear every one of them.

The Hound is waiting by the door.

“Come along, dog, we’re going to find my mother,” his dog follows, as obedient as ever. He wonders sometimes if his dog ever wanted pups, but always put it aside thinking that no woman would want such a monstrous face. He reconsidered now. Sandor could probably find someone in the North, especially with the way the Stark girls loved their wolves. They probably wouldn’t mind a dog instead. He pushed the amusement aside, smiles would not help him with his soft and yielding mother, a woman above all else, but a sad look would. He knew he was being cruel but he didn’t care. The Seven Kingdoms would be his soon and he would have what he wanted.

The Sept in Winterfell was small. It had the same seven wall and large windows, the same statues of the recognisable figures he had grown up praising, but it lacked the grandeur of the one he knew. It looked hastily set up, probably because these Northerners worshiped trees. They didn’t care about civilised religions. He found his mother where they said he would. She was knelt in front of The Mother, light streaming through the crystals to shine on the golden hair he had inherited. Her head was bowed, and seven thick, white prayer candles were lit in front of her bent body.

His mother pretended otherwise, but she was just as soft and weak as every other woman. She looked like she about to cry.

“Mother,” he said, unable to hide his annoyance. His mother was a queen. She should act like one. He was gratified to see her jerk upright and to her feet at the sound of his voice.

“Joff,” She said, and turned around, her arms outstretched as if to pacify him like he was an animal. That made him pleased too, and angry. Her eyes were soft, like they always were when they looked at him.  He stepped forward, the marble and his shoes making sharp sounds as they met, like swords clanging in battle.

Her hands met his face, but he jerked away.

“Joff, Joff,” she cooed at him.

His face screwed up in disgust, but he let her hands pull him into an embrace. His mother had always loved him. She couldn’t help it. It was a woman’s way, but, that didn’t mean he didn’t take comfort in it. It annoyed him, but he was sure once he left behind the trappings of childhood this would have less of an effect on him.

“Mother, will you tell me what was going on?” he asked, instead of thinking about it he focused on what he wanted. His eyes narrowed without his permission at her mouth opening and closing with no sound coming out. Obviously he had shocked her, obviously she didn’t want to answer him, but she would. He would make sure he got the answers he desired.  “Mother!”

“There has been talk,” she began hesitantly. There was the look in her eyes like she was trying to calm a wild animal again. People never looked at his father like that. They smiled for him. “That your brother has been found.”

“Tommen?” He said stupidly, but of course it wasn’t Tommen. His mother meant Edward. His lost brother, the one that could take the throne from him, steal his kinghood before he could even taste it. He wondered, for a moment, who the boy most looked like. They had said he had had black hair. Would he be a copy of his father? A Robert made flesh once more, where he was Lannister red and gold? His jaw trembled he had it clenched so hard.

“It’s nothing,” his mother said dismissively, and turned from him, “I’ve seen the boy. It’s not him.”

“Then people shouldn’t be talking about it!” he spat. His mother’s hands calm towards him again. He moved away from them, “Why hasn’t father stopped them?”

She scowled, “He believes there may be some truth to the stupid rumour.”

“But he’s wrong.”

“Yes, my sweet son, he’s _wrong._ ”

He nodded. He took in the statues around him, looked for his own face in them, like he used to when he was a child. For a second he thought he did see his own face in the Warrior, but its carved features were his uncle, Jaime, and the Father his father, and for a moment the cold face of the Eddard Stark. Even a fleeting moment of his father in the Smith, hammer raised, then it was the face of the blacksmith his mother had someone take him to to get a sword smithed for him for his name day from start to finish. His mother was in the Mother, his sister and pretty Sansa Stark in the Maiden, hundreds of half-forgotten Septas in the Crone. None of them with his face. Maybe he was in the seventh statue, its face covered with a hood of grey cloth. But no, that wasn’t him either, that was no one he knew.

“It will be okay, Joffrey,” His mother said, her face still mimicked by the mother’s stone visage, “I will not let them take what is rightfully yours from you.”

He couldn’t help but be a little reassured with that, although the idea of his father being happy to give away his throne upset him. But he would make his father look at him with the regard he looked at Eddard Stark.

He could never have gone to his father for this, but he had already made other plans to please his father.

 

oOo

 

Her father led her along with a light hand on her arm. Her mother was on her other side, fair vibrating with some unknown emotion, what she would have thought of as grief but seemed mixed with something else. Both her parents had lined etched on their faces that hadn’t been there before Bran’s fall. He still hadn’t woken up yet. They thought he might die. Her Lady Mother had refused to leave his bedside it was only her father, arm around the sobbing Rickon that convinced her to get up. Sansa was sure this was the first time since he had been put in that bed that there wasn’t at least one of their parents by his side.

Sansa wasn’t sure where they were leading her, they had refused to tell her which she thought was a little unfair, she had a right to know! But, it was father, he only wanted the best for her, she was sure. Maybe after this she got find Jeyne and sneak something sweet from the kitchens. But first she wanted to know where she was going, she would only want to do it if she had a good story to tell her.

“Sansa,” her father said as he turned to face her, her mother still had her tight grip on her arm, in truth, it hurt a bit. But her father’s serious grey eyes caught her and her discomfort faded a little. “This is a serious issue, and it must be treated as such.”

It upset her that he didn’t trust her, but her mother and Septa Mordane had taught her to be gracious so she just says “Of course, father,” in her sweetest tone. She sounds just like a proper lady.

“If it had been up to your father, you would not have known,” her lady mother said, with a fond glare towards her husband, although Sansa can see the lines around her eyes. Bran is written in every one. “But I managed to convince him it was for the best you did, after all, this does concern you.”

Sansa’s interest was more than peaked, her heat beat a little patter in her chest, like a bird wanting out of its cage, she could feel it thunder against her ribs. Really, she felt a little scared too, and she wished Lady were here. If she were, Sansa could’ve buried her hands in her warm, soft fur, and drawn strength from it. But she could be brave without Lady here. She was a lady too, and a Stark as well. And if her mother could be brave she could be too. She nodded at her parents matched serious gazes.

Slowly her father opened the door. It was a room near the maester’s tower and she knew they were used for the sick. Was she here to see someone ill? She knew that father took her brothers out to see deserters of the Night’s Watch be executed and, of course, that was much too violent for girls, but maybe she was here to see someone die a more natural death? She couldn’t imagine her mother thinking that was a good idea though, and she really didn’t want to see blood, or pus or anything disgusting and ugly like that. To be honest, she had always imagined deaths like in the stories, with flowers and last, emphatic love confessions as beautiful ladies took their last breaths.

But that wasn’t what greeted her when the door was fully opened.

Instead it was a young man. He was pale, and a little delicate looking, Sansa could see the fine bones in his wrists and collar. Someone had wrapped him up in layers of wool and cotton and fur, and he looked tiny in them, like a child, almost, but for the dark stubble growing on his cheeks and the grown, capable strength in his hands.

“Good afternoon, Edward,” her father said, and she recognised that name! How many of her childhood fantasies had been about him? And, oh, he was lovely! So handsome, with messy black hair like the King and a long body. She couldn’t wait to tell Jeyne! He was sitting at a desk, and had obviously been reading before they had interrupted him. His eyes were wide and a bright, great green colour as he took in the people that had disturbed his solitude. They were even greener than Joffrey’s! Sansa could feel a smile bursting across her face like sunlight bursting through clouds.

 “My lord,” Her mother said, nudging her as she curtseyed, Sansa quickly hurried into a curtsy too, her fantasies momentarily abandoned.

“Oh, good afternoon,” Edward said, he had a strange accent, but it was barely there. Sansa imagined that he had spent his childhood in some strange land, like Lyseni or somewhere like that, with no idea of the royal blood that ran through his veins, the throne that awaited him, the high born lady that would be has lady love and queen!  How excited he must have been to return to home, to all of this!

“Edward, this is Lady Catelyn, my wife and Lady Sansa, my eldest daughter. We thought,” he exchanged a glance with his wife, “that since you were so close in age, she could keep you company.”

Was that only what they thought? She had hoped, well, there had been talk that she and Joffrey were to be married, and if he was no longer the first son but a second son then surely…?

“Of course,” Edward said, he stood quickly, furs and blankets falling from his lap onto the floor and the chair. He hurried to pick them up. Sansa couldn’t help but smile at how uncertain he seemed, how eager he looked not to disappoint them!

“How are you, my lord?” She asked, after being pushed forward by her mother. They settled her down at a table she had not noticed, which looked like it had been set up for a late lunch. There were little sandwiches and, she was pleased to see, little lemon cakes! She immediately took two. Edward, she realised, went for the round, latticed tarts although he frowned lightly at the fruity taste.

“I’m well,” He said, belatedly, and although his hasty swallow was ungraceful she found herself smiling at it. “And you, my lady?”

“I’m well too,” She replied,  she could see her mother’s distracted smile and her father’s interest out of the corner of her eye and it was enough to send a surge of pride to straighten her spine. This was important to them, and of course they picked her, and of course she was doing well, and maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t wrong. She couldn’t help but beam. “How are you enjoying your stay in Winterfell?”

He looked uncertain though. She was sure that was a conversation to open him up but he was slouching.

“It’s confusing.” He finally answered.

Confusing? She thought, Winterfell had always been a very simple place, she couldn’t imagine it confusing anyone.

Her father coughed. She wished for a second that her parents weren’t in the room, that it was just her and Edward but that would never have been allowed anyway.

“Edward was found in the forest, Sansa,” he said, and Sansa almost missed Edward turning to stare at the table sadly while she was looking at her father, “He doesn’t have any memories of his past.”

“Oh,” She said, and then cursed herself for sounding dumb, but what else was she supposed to say? It was horrible, but at the same time, so romantic! She pictured in her head Edward being nursed back to health and regaining his memories at the hands of a pretty, young maiden, and if she imagined that maiden with blue eyes like hers and long auburn hair well, that could you blame her?

“But why am I here?” She couldn’t help but ask.

“We are planning,” her mother said carefully, and the look her father gave her was lovely. She really did hope that she had a marriage like her parents, “for you two would get betrothed.”

This was all she ever wanted! She turned to see Edward’s reaction, taming her face into a graceful if pleased, expression, she was honestly quite surprised.  Edward looked shocked as well. It seemed like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to look at her or not, his bright green eyes were flickering to her and then to his plate and then back to her. The colour rose on his cheeks when he caught her eye accidentally and his eyes stayed fixed to his plate after that.

“I don’t-“ He stuttered, “Is this because of-“

“Yes,” her father said, to her confusion, “Originally Sansa and your younger brother, Joffrey were going to be wed, but, if you are the first born...”

“Of course,” he said dazedly. Sansa couldn’t help but feel for him, he had only just found out about his royal blood, his great destiny and now he was betrothed! It was exciting but she could imagine it was overwhelming as well.

“Have you met your younger siblings yet, my Lord?” She asked, trying to gentle him. She felt rather like ---- must of when he got a wild horse. Sansa never liked going near the stables even when all of the animals had been tamed, as it was a very dirty place, but she couldn’t help but hear stories. Robb said the way ---- spoke to them was gentle to calm them down before he began to tame them.

“No,” he answered, eyes finally on her. They were so beautifully green!

“Oh, I hope you do soon, they are lovely. Myrcella is gentle and sweet and Tommen is such a happy boy.”

“Really?” He asked, his expression lit up. Sansa wondered if he would be so excited when he talked about their children. She wanted lots of them. Boys and girls all named after famous heroes and beautiful ladies, like in the songs. They would be heroes and beautiful too. One of them would be king.

“Yes,” She glanced at her parents. Her father was looking at them but her mother had the same expression on her face she got whenever she thought of Bran. Sansa instantly felt guilty. She did want Bran awake. Everyone loved Bran, she knew Edward would too, but she was going to be Queen one day. Was it wrong of her to want some recognition for that?

She pushed the feelings away and began telling Edward about his sisters embroidery and his brother’s sword fights. She didn’t know why, but she left out Joffrey. She was certain the once heir to the throne wouldn’t be happy to be shunted back a place, even though he had been gracious and kind to her in his visit so far.

“You must tell no one, Sansa, not that we are so certain this is him, nor that we are planning to marry him to you.” Her mother said to her later, her voice the epitome of sternness.

Sansa agreed. She would keep it a secret, after all, Jeyne was just a steward’s daughter, there were some things steward’s daughter’s weren’t supposed to know.

 


	5. Chapter 5

"I want to see him, mother!" said Tommen, "Can we see him?"

"Oh yes, please!" added Myrcella, "Please, can we? Joff wants to too, don't you?"

That was music to his ears. Tyrion had quite an interest in that child as well. The possibilities he presented. Joffrey, while his nephew, happened to be one of the most loathsome little beasts he had ever encountered. It didn't exactly pain him to see the boy get shunted back. There were only so many insipid laughs to that stupid dog's peekaboo games he could take. More than once had he been tempted to smack that pink face to knock some sense into the lad. He had only been able to indulge that whim sparingly. Earlier had been one of those times, with the boy refusing to pay any sort of respect to their hosts.

But it did concern him to see none of the expected malice and disgruntlement he had expected from his nephew. His face, so very much like his beloved brothers, was smug more than anything. The courtly grace he presented the sweet Stark girl with hadn't changed one bit even though Tyrion knew the Starks must have been circling what was now the first born son and leaving his golden haired nephew, now a second son like Tyrion behind. He had seen some of the shrewd station climbing in the Lady Stark although he had wanted to be as far away from these Northern faces and their cold hands and carved faces as possible he had been forced into her company more than once. He much preferred the warmth of a whore's hands, and legs, and other, more welcoming parts.

But he hadn't been able to wriggle his way into a whorehouse for days – The news of his recovered nephew was too sensational for that. He was almost certain it was his nephew, to be honest. Cersei had said it wasn't but there had been something in her eyes, a softening of her face, the harsh, yet beautiful line of her mouth had curved downwards. She had been sad to see him.

More than that she could barely take her eyes off him. Even when denying him she had stared, like a blind woman who could finally see staring at the sun, at his face. Tyrion had only even seen that wealth of emotion in his sister when it came to one thing – her children.

"Yes, mother," Joffrey finally answered, his knife speared a bit of food. He let it hang there for a moment, for a second of silence, before he continued, "I very much would like to see him."

He popped the morsel in his mouth. The sound of it seemed supernaturally loud as Cersei's face screwed up. Tyrion grimaced. But…the children were begging for it, and, to be honest, he was quite eager to see the boy as well.

He knew his input wouldn't lead to anything good so he stayed silent, taking in the curiosity on Jaime's face instead. Although he hadn't spoken a word Tyrion knew his older brother was eager to see the boy, as much as he could be. Jaime had always been a rather passive man, in any place other than battle of course. Tyrion often noted to himself that his stabbing of the Mad King seemed almost out of character for Jaime.

Tyrion couldn't help but smirk when Jaime lay a hand on their sister's arm. Cersei looked at his hand for a second then nodded. She never caved like that for Tyrion. But then again Jaime had a lot of things Tyrion didn't, only some of Tyrion wished he actually did have. The height would have been good.

He heard Myrcella cheer, and Tommen's high, young voice join in and Tyrion turned to looked. These two he had no problem claiming. He tried sometimes to put Cersei in Myrcella's place and although she looked just like her mother there was nothing else. He could never picture the same graceful generosity of spirit in Cersei, some of the intelligence, yes, but never any of the kindness. He tried to see Jaime in Tommen too, and had more luck than seeing himself in the boy, but even then there wasn't much in terms of similarity. Did the children get this boundless joy from Robert? Somehow Tyrion doubted it. Maybe his mother had been joyful But Tyrion would never know that.

As much as he could despise his family He was a Lannister. And Lannisters took care of their own. The boy could have been a Lannister too. He could see the hints of tension around his sister's sweet face, but that could have had something to do the boy, Bran. Tyrion had his suspicion about that mess too, although Tyrion had more suspicion than anything else when it came to his elder sister, and what she did behind closed doors with Jaime.

"Not today, though," Cersei finished, "And I'll have to speak with your father first. He commanded that we weren't to see him until things had been confirmed."

Joffrey looked worried, but the other's looked confused. They didn't realise the confusion surrounding the boy, the lives and people that depended on him either being or not being the heir to the throne, the Kingdom it would change. Tyrion envied them their innocence a little. He could never remember being like that either. Not for long anyway.  _Tysha,_ he thought lowly, sadly, angrily.

"But we will see him soon." Cersei said, her hand when to Tommen's head, gentle. She seemed to have forgotten Tyrion was there, but his food had been delivered so he cared little for that. The bacon was black, just as he liked it. Jaime looked away from her when she said that. Tyrion wondered what he was thinking about. His gaze almost looked blank and he was staring at the door, his hand still on his sister's arm.

 

oOo

 

He had never really considered them his. Cersei only spoke of it rarely, but when she did she said they looked like him. Personally, he only saw her when he looked at them. It was hard to see himself in Tommen mostly. Jaime didn't think he had ever been that happy.

But that changed when he saw the boy.

He was awake now and that drunken fool had said that they weren't to go in yet, they weren't to get attached, until his claim, the Stark's claim had been verified. But Jaime was famous for breaking rules. Robert should be happy this one didn't end with a knife in the back like it had for the last king. He wanted to see him, to look at him and try and find the familiar lines in his face. It was strange how easy it was for him to ignore that Cersei shared another man's bed when there wasn't living proof of it. Jaime was almost ashamed of how pleased he had been when the boy had been taken. He could pretend he had never existed, or in the later years, that he was just another one of Cersei's children that was barely his and not Robert's at all.

He couldn't pretend that now he had seen Edward. There was so much of Cersei in his face, so much of Robert there in brow, his skin. Gods, he had green eyes. His eyes were the same shade as Jaime's father, as Cersei, as Jaime, as one of Tyrion's mismatched eyes. And his hair was the messy Baratheon black he had been born with.

"Hello?" The boy said, he was sitting on the bed, staring at the door, at the gap Jaime was peering through. He couldn't answer, didn't want to consider the steaming piles of shit he would get into if the boy told tales about him visiting. Jaime especially didn't want to be recognised. "Is somebody there?"

Jaime moved back further away from the sliver of view into and out of the door. He was wearing white and gold. He gleamed. Jaime couldn't risk the boy seeing him. Not now Jaime had seen the boy.

He was their child. Gods, Jamie wanted to laugh at it. All these years of Cersei fucking him and Robert fucking every girl that fell within the vast vicinity of his lap and doing their best to never soberly even touch each other and now the only proof they'd ever fucked was back.

Jaime remembered the night he was taken. Cersei had taken the babe off to her rooms, to a little gold and crimson crib and only a few guards to protect them. It was her first child and people gave her a little leeway. Everyone had been so happy. A heir cemented a ruler's throne, stabilised the sovereignty and it gave every one hope that the war was over and they would have another dynasty to follow for hundreds of years. When he had been taken Jaime had thought he was the only one who may have been happy, Cersei had been so distraught, she had barely allowed him to touch her for months, let alone anything else. But she had missed him. When she did let him touch her she had hardly let him stop. Cersei had had him take her over and over and made him release deep inside her. He had known she had wanted another child. It had made sense, it had pleased him, that she wanted it to be his.

He felt strange with this boy living and near them. He didn't care that it wouldn't be a Lannister, one of his children on the throne next, or even that it would be one of that fat, drunken slob's, but the proof that Cersei had had someone else inside of her other than him. It made him want to hit something – preferably that same fat, drunken slob that had dishonoured his sister over and over again and made him a witness to it. It wasn't rare for him to be so angry. When he was a child and his father made him practice his letters over and over until he knew them as well as Cersei did, with Tyrion learning faster than either of them, even though they jumped all over the page and swapped places with each other he was rarely anything but angry. He had tamed that lion over the years,, become insouciant. There were so many things he couldn't change, he was such an obvious pawn in so many other people's games, there was no point in being angry about it. Rage achieved nothing. He had Cersei and he had a sword and every opportunity to use it, what else could he do but be happy about that.

But he couldn't be happy now. Not with that boy alive and well only feet away from him. Jaime imagined, just for a second, rushing into that room and drawing his sword. He sliced through his neck in his imagination, and stabbed his chest, into his heart, but then his imagination took his feet out from under him and the boy's face turned into Cersei's. She screamed at him and her beautiful, soft cheeks coursed with tears. She was angry at him, but she died crying. There was enough of her in the boy's face even before that that bile rose in his throat at the thought of hurting him. Would she be angry? Would she strike him? Would she even grieve? She had at the beginning, when the boy had been first lost but her tears had dried. Would they dry again? What would she do if he killed the evidence of Robert's seed in her?

He wasn't sure he could look at her. Jaime knew she had never wanted Robert, not even at the height of his glory, he knew she had only ever truly wanted him. They were made for each other. But, still, he wasn't sure he could look at her after this.

 

oOo

 

She held one of his little hands in hers. It's so pale, and still warm and that gives her hope but she can barely tear her eyes off of his face, so calm and serene. There was a scrape down the side of his forehead from where he hit the ground, a rusty brown smear that showed that her son isn't just asleep. He won't wake up in a few hours and smile at her, sigh exhaustedly at her presence and run off. He won't ever run again. Oh Gods, he might not ever even wake up either.

Catelyn tried not to sob. She wasn't as successful as she thought she would be and the sound echoed in the empty room. She could barely even hear Bran breathing and the dog, the wolf, was quieter than she had thought possible. She didn't know if she wanted it to howl. It could have masked the noises she was making, match them. It made her feel like an animal.

But what else could she be? Her child was lying there, injured, hurt, dried blood on his face and no movement in his lower body and she wanted to be a wolverine. She wanted to be one of those fierce animals she had heard about who never let anything, anybody, hurt their young. She never wanted something like this to happen to her children. The sobbing came louder. It racked at her chest, her ribs hurt at the force of it.

And Ned would leave soon. She had heard the King talking about it. That fat, drunken man had come here and he was taking her husband away. He was taking her Ned away and leaving her with only Bran, her broken little Bran, only Bran and Robb and little Rickon. Only her boys and one of them not moving. To think she had encouraged it! She had thought this would be wonderful for her children, and she supposed it would be, but would it be enough? Would it make up for this? To see her other children flourish? To see her beautiful Sansa wed to a Prince and her wild little Arya learn some manners? Catelyn hoped so, but she wasn't sure. Even if her other children ruled the world, and were happy with it, would it be worth it if Bran never opened his eyes again?

More than that, she would be alone. No body but her own to warm her cold Northern bed. This place never quite felt like home unless Ned was beside her. Her children made it better, but even then it was not the same. Nothing was ever quite as good without Ned there.

And he wouldn't be here for a while. When would she see him? Would she make the trip down to the city for short visits and leave her children here just so she could feel his skin against hers for longer than a memory? Would he visit her instead, and come back to the North he loved so much, that made up so much of him, that was his heart, and his bones and his serenity? Ned had spent years away from Winterfell as a boy growing into a man but he had told her how he missed his home. Even with Robert to run around with and to clean up after and Brandon to inherit he had missed the North like nothing else, he told her. He had missed the heavy, dark, intimate and unknowable Godswood that she felt so uncomfortable in, and he missed the hot springs and the warmth in the stones of his home. And he missed his family.

Would he miss her boys as much? Would he miss her as much?

It was a shock to realise she was just staring at the fleece covers that lay over her son. She tried to drag her eyes away but she couldn't – the crosshatched pattern transfixed her and no matter how hard she tried to pull her eyes away she couldn't. Her head moved but her eyes were stuck in place. It felt like she would never be able to moved them again. She would never move again and she could become a ghoul, a gargoyle guarding her sleeping son. Would she stay here until he woke? Would either of them ever move again?

Her body was not her own. She had given it up time and time again for children, rejoicing over the growing bulge of her stomach. Even the aches seemed worth it, when her ankles swelled to twice their size and Carrying some of them so low she could barely move in the later months because of the pain in her hips. Bran had been one of those children, she remembered and the tears welled up yet again. It had been such a surprise because, for all of the later struggles and how much she cried when she was birthed, Arya had been such an effortless babe in her. Catelyn had been able to run with her even days before the birth. She had been so light it felt like she had barely been carrying a babe at all. Sansa had been the same and Catelyn remembered how charmed she had been by her passive turning. She had never kicked. Arya had kicked something fierce. Rickon had too, he was such a sweet child she sometimes forgot what a fierce thing he had been in her womb. Her little wild child, with her hair and Ned's eyes, at least she would have him her with her. He had years yet to be grown. He was just so small, big for his age, she knew but still so mall when she picked him up. He was only a little bit smaller that Bran. Bran was so small for his age. He always had been. He had never seemed frail. He never did, not until now.

Catelyn forced her hands to move and pulled a few soft strands of Bran's hair away from his pale, smooth forehead. Her hands felt stiff and they looked like claws but she made them move.

 

oOo

 

She held it in her hands. It hadn't been hard to acquire. Her hair fell in golden waves around it, but her eyes were caught on the shine of the liquid in the vial she held in her hands. It was purple, a deep, deep purple, a beautiful colour even. She could have got it in crystals, that was the form she had heard it being used as most, but the stories said this would be easier. She just had to put it in a glass for him and he'd choke to death. They called it 'The Strangler' and it was a beautiful shade of purple.

It had been used to kill kings. Edward may have not been a Lannister, but he was her child, and he deserved to die like a King, even if she wouldn't let him live like one.

Cersei closed her fingers around the small bottle. She moved them so that not even a sliver of what she held in her hand was visible, apart from the neck and top, which was stoppered with silver and carved with a little pattern. She hadn't taken the time to look at it properly, for all it had captivated her attention, but it was a pattern of flowers and leaves, circular. If she looked at it a certain way, with her eyes almost shut or with the light glinting off of the metal, it looked like a crown. It was the plant the poison was made of although she did not know their names.

She slipped it into her pocket. It would be safe there, until she could put it somewhere else safe. She had a hundred little hiding places for things, had since she realised that Robert was far from the dream she had thought he was, that she would never replace that cold, northern, troublemaking bitch, Lyanna in his heart, since she realised she would need a place to keep her secrets hidden. She had worried, in the beginning, that Robert would find one, but then it began apparent that he would never be sober enough to see the sun in a clear sky, especially if there was a pretty girl in the same room. She had kept a lot of secrets in those hiding places. If any of them had ever been found, she had never found out and nothing had ever been moved.

She would do it tomorrow, she decided. She couldn't be there when he died, she couldn't have any suspicion cast on herself, but she had been told that it took a short while. She didn't want to see his face when it happened. She didn't know if she could-

Robert had forbidden her, forbidden everyone, to see the boy. It was because he was scared. She knew the Starks were still seeing him and Robert had done nothing about that, the old oaf, but as much as she wanted those people away from Edward there was nothing she could do about it. She had publicly disowned him, decreed him not her son, it wouldn't do for her to show concern now. It would make everyone suspicions. Everyone would be suspicious enough when he died, but the boy would be dead and her Joff would be first in line for the throne and she could continue on with her plans for King's Landing. Lancel was being as helpful as he possibly could. Soon the throne would be hers and it would be her children's after that and their children would sit on it after that and they would carry on, golden haired and beautiful, until they had a legacy even longer and more legendary that that of the Targaryan's.

Cersei stood. It was time to work her magic with Robert. She had done it for so many years it was almost like breathing. She had to get to him soon, when he was still pliant and rosy and would be more eager to help her. He felt guilty for all the times he hit her, for all the ties he called out her name when he was inside her, for how their marriage had turned out. He would help her closer to sober than he could drunk.

Earlier it had been the other way round. He had been jolly but stubborn when drunk and went to Jon bloody Arin before allowing her anything and then once he began drinking he was as easy to manoeuvre as a child. Now he was different. He was always slightly in his cups and Cersei had to get to him before he became so drunk he was insensate. When he became like that, he hated her. He hated her and he called for his Lyanna. His sweet Lyanna who ran off with another man. The fool.

Robert was probably in her tomb right now, on his knees in the dirt, his face resting on his dead betrothed stone knees. Would he be crying? She wondered, would his tears leave dark, wet marks on the statue. She wouldn't go down there. She couldn't go down there. Robert wouldn't let her and he wouldn't thank her for it either.

She had snuck down there once, on their first visit to Winterfell as a married couple, as King and Queen. He had left her side to visit his corpse bride and she could have still loved him then. She was curious more than jealous. She had gone down that cold, dark passage and nearly lost her steps more than once, but she found her, next to the older Stark brother who had been killed by the Mad King. They said she was beautiful, Cersei had seen her and there was a sort of pretty charm to her face but she couldn't see any of it in the statue. The shadows made her ghastly. Her face was pulled into a smug smile by the rock, by the low light and all Cersei could think was  _'yes, yes, you're right, you have him even now, you bitch.'_

But Lyanna was dead and she was welcome to Robert. Cersei would have what she wanted in the end.

 

oOo

 

The cloak was so light and silky in his hand it felt cold. He wrapped it around his shoulders anyway. It did seem warmer with it over his shoulders, the soft weight of it down his back, covering his arms. He didn't want to leave it behind, it didn't seem right, and it had been one of the few things he had left to remind him of all of the years he had missed. More than once, when he had been left alone, he used to hold it, and the ring and the gold ball and stare at them, trying to fit them into the blank horizon of his memories. He thought they might help him but he didn't get anything. They had taken the sword away from him.

Robb had said the sword as in a safe place, but he hadn't told him where it was. The bloody thing was lost to him. They had let him hold it once and the hilt had fit perfectly in his hand. It gleamed. The rubies glowed like little points of fire, the gold like sunlight. He remembered the name that was engraved on it too.  _Godric Gryffindor_ it said. He didn't know why, but it seemed more familiar than anything else he had seen since she woke up. He had asked Robb about it

He wanted to know who it was, why it was so familiar, why, when he looked at the name, held the sword, closed his eyes and felt it, it felt almost like he was home. When his hand was wrapped around it's hilt, he felt  _brave._  He wanted it more than he wanted the ring, which sent shivers down his spine even as it slid perfectly onto his finger, and the golden ball, ornate and motionless, and maybe even the slick, silvery cloak which also inspired feelings of home and family. He hadn't told anyone about these emotions. It felt wrong to share them. He wanted to keep them for himself.

He wanted to keep everything he had been found with. He had lost the clothes. They had been taken from him and replaced but he still had everything except the sword. He wanted to hold them all close to him, stare at them until he knew where they came from, where  _he_ came from, but he couldn't. It killed him, but he had to leave the sword behind.

They thought he was some sort of prince! He hadn't believed it when they first told him. He thought it was sort joke, a ridiculous, horrid prank being played on the amnesiac, but then he realised, they actually believed it! It was ridiculous! He may not know who he was but he knew he was not a prince!

And he was going to find out who he was. That face. That blue lipped bald man who haunted him. The first thing he remembered. Robb had let it slip that they thought he was a wizard or something from a place called Quarth and nobody had objected when he asked to see a map. He had carefully copied out a map, just trying to see the distance, the lay of the land, and it hadn't seemed so far that getting there was inconceivable. He wanted to go. He didn't think he could trust anybody here to help him.

He glanced down, the stones that made up the floor of the corridors were uneven. He didn't want to slip or trip. Any loud noises would give him away, but?! His feet! They weren't there! He could see the dark, rough texture of the stones where his feet should be. Slowly, his gaze travelled up. His entire body was invisible!

He took advantage of it. Running, he let his apparent invisibility do its work. It was the dead of night and most people where asleep.

Wait, he thought, with a cloak like this, maybe he could find out where his sword was!

If he waited one more night, just one more conversation with Robb to find out where it was, he could leave with a bit of protection. He had heard stories about the world outside of Winterfell, the danger in it. He had no doubt he would need the protection of some sort of weapon, but wouldn't the ornate sword catch attention? Would it be a lure for thieves or murderers, all those people Robb had warned him about?

He couldn't lie to himself though. He wanted it for the memories that would surely be attached to it. He wanted it for the feeling of safety it brought, the feeling of security and even contentment. He wanted it because it was proof he didn't just pop out of nowhere. He came from somewhere, something, and maybe there were people waiting there who wanted him back.

Sighing, he stepped back slowly, he still wasn't used to his supposed invisibility, although seeing the floor where he knew his legs were was fascinating. Then he turned and slowly walked back. One more night, he promised, one more night.

 


End file.
